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Sunday, October 14, 2012

In this painting I started with the fabric. It is designed
by British designer, Lucienne Day and is called Calyx dated 1951. Since sewing
patterns are plentiful from the 1950s, it wasn’t difficult to find one
suitable for the fabric.

I copied a photograph of Day and cut out one of the pattern
pieced in white paper trying to match the curves of the material design and the
structure she is leaning on to give the painting flow.

The style of fabric and wallpaper designs in the post WWII
years enjoyed the freedom of creating dynamic and stimulating patterns inspired
by art, architecture and science. And it was called “Contemporary” style.

The cartoons of Saul Steinberg, paintings of Miro and Klee,
and the mobiles of Alexander Calder influenced Day. Her design vocabulary was
imaginative, inventive, playful, and colorful and exhibited a high level of
artistic awareness.

My interest in this painting started with a mail order dress
pattern I found in an Antique shop, which was originally bought through
American Weekly Magazine. The American Weekly was a Sunday newspaper supplement
published by the Hearst Corporation from November 1, 1896, until 1966. During
the 1890s, publications were inserted into Joseph Pulitzer's New York World and
William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal. Hearst had the eight-page Women's
Home Journal and the 16-page Sunday American Magazine, which later became The
American Weekly.

This pattern came from the pattern department of The
American Weekly and was bought by a Mrs. Lester who lived in Devine Texas. The
pattern was for a little girl named Carolyn, size 4. Mrs. Lester wrote the
girls name on the pattern envelope. The pattern pieces are unprinted and it
came with sewing instructions.

I tried to date the pattern but there isn’t postage.
Apparently undated meters date mail order patterns. This one falls between 1930
and 1950 and costs about one to one and a half cents. It also has a serial number
that narrows the date down from1933 to 1940.

Curious to see if I could fine any more clues to date this
pattern I looked inside and found Mrs. Lester had used the local newspaper to
make a copy of some of the pattern pieces. Because the tissue paper is so
fragile, I can understand why she did this. I thought, great, I certainly will
find a date on the newspaper pieces, but didn’t. Then I found a most unusual
article about a man named Mr. Thorn from Taylor Texas who vowed to stay on his
diet of dehydrated cereal grasses as a means of expressing his individual
support of the European Aid Plan. I looked this up on Wikipedia and the closest
I could find was the Marshal Plan, defined below.

The Marshall Plan (officially the European Recovery Program,
ERP) was the American program to aid Europe where the United States gave
monetary support to help rebuild European economies after the end of World War
II in order to prevent the spread of Soviet Communism. The plan was in operation
for four years beginning in April 1947. The goals of the United States were to
rebuild a war-devastated region, remove trade barriers, modernize industry, and
make Europe prosperous again.

After the aid bill had been passed Mr. Thorn had to taper
off his grass diet and increase his daily caloric intake from 200 to 1200
calories. As they say, you can’t make this stuff up.

So the date of the pattern is in the 1940s. After
establishing the date, I found some vintage fabric, a ribbon, and old buttons I
thought would be appropriate for a little girl’s dress.

Friday, August 31, 2012

I found
this McCall’s pattern in a pattern book from the 1940s. I drew a black outline
of the fabric for the background and used the colored cloth to place the
pattern piece on. Rick Rack was popular at the time for aprons and hems were
finished with seam tape. The pattern only cost twenty-five cents at the time
and many women sewed to save money.

The
fabric is called “Atomic Kitchen” designed by the contemporary fabric designer,
Michael Miller. The inspiration comes from Mid Century Modern Design dating
roughly from 1946 to 1965. The art of textile design changed radically after
World War II and Mid Century Modern was born. People wanted clean patterns,
bright colors, and designs reflecting the positive developments of the period. The use
of dramatic saturated colors, bold motifs, and black lines inspired from
artists like Alexander Calder and Joan Miró brought the world of contemporary
art into everyone’s home. Technological developments such as television
broadcasting and space travel added to the inspiration for Mid-Century Designs.
Sometimes you hear the term Atomic Design used to describe this style. Remember
back to the 1950s when we saw satellite legs on furniture, rounded oblongs that
reflected the new television screens, geometric shapes, satellite images and
cowboy design from TV shows.

In this
painting about home sewing, I used a fabric that is a reproduction from the
1950s. I laid out some pattern pieces from a Simplicity pattern for a little
girl's dress. A Simplicity pattern at this time cost about fifty cents.The 1950s is regarded as sewing’s
golden age even though the numbers waned a bit because the economy was booming
and women could afford ready-mades again. But there was a strong focus on
fashion sewing, designer patterns, and copying Hollywood looks. In some ways,
sewing became more chic. In 1955, 52 million women and girls in the U.S. were
sewing.

My inspiration
for this painting was the Rick Rack. Rick Rack is a flat narrow braid woven in
zigzag form, used as a trimming for clothing or curtains. Made of cotton or
polyester, it is stitched or glued to the edges of an item. Its zigzag
configuration repeats every third of an inch (about one centimeter) and is sold
in multiple colors and textures. Rick Rack's popularity peaked in the 1970s and
is associated with the Little House on the Prairie and the pioneer sentiment
brought about by the 1976 American bicentennial.

The Many Names of Rick Rack

In the
1916 Needlecraft
article, the word is Rickrack, another 1916 pattern book says Rick Rack and today, the trim packaging also
shows it split into two words "Rick Rack". You'll sometimes see it
spelled Rich Rac.
Go back to the 1800s and you would be crocheting on a variation called Waved
Braid. By 1916, they
had dropped the "d" to make this Wave Braid. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, it
was also called Zigzag Braid, Snake Braid and Corrugated Braid.

This is a Vogue Design Original Pattern from the 1930’s.
Vogue was charging fifty cents when other pattern companies were charging
fifteen cents. I have laid out some of the pattern pieces over the fabric to
show transparency. The thread is wound on wooden spools.

The silhouette of women’s clothing began to change in 1928,
because, according to Vogue, skirts
could not get any shorter or waistlines any longer. The natural waist returned
at the beginning of the period and remained throughout the 1930’s. By the
mid-1930’s, the emphasis began to be on the broader shoulder line, initially
developed through fuller sleeve shapes, and later with the introduction of
shoulder pads, a style that would remain through World War II. Because a
slender silhouette dominated dress styles at the start of the 1930’s,
exercising, was recommended for slimmer bodies.

Joan Crawford’s famous designer, Adrian, widened her
shoulders with ruffled sleeves and shoulder pads to make her hips look narrower
and women wanted to copy Crawford’s style. Almost all dresses, suits and coats
had belts. Gloves and hats were essential for day and eveningwear. The most
frequently worn shoes were pumps that sat high on the arch of the foot. T-strap
sandals and oxfords were also popular. Costume jewelry became popular in the
1920’s and continues to this day.

The fabric I used is a
reproduction of a printed flour sack or feedback. The tradition began in the
great depression and lasted into the 1950's. It is estimated that by the early
1940's over 3 million women and children were wearing some version of a printed
feedbag garments.

Not only were flours sack
designs simple, so was the concept. They were used as a promotion to sell more
flour because the bag, or sack that the flour was packed in could be reused to
make clothes. One of the reasons for there being thousands of different flour
sack designs was the idea that the shorter the time that a particular design
was available, more designs would be used. Women wanted more fabric designs and
would therefore help drive demand for the flour.

I found this child's garment in an antique shop. It is the
slip worn with a more ornate dress for a small child dating to around the
1950's. The fabric is Organdy and I was intrigued with painting its transparent
quality. I can remember wearing Organdy as a child and the fabric was very
uncomfortable, but looked wonderful, crisp, and full. I wanted to know about Organdy
and found the following information.

Organdy is very fine transparent cotton with a stiff finish.
Crispness is due to a finish with starch and calendering which washes out, or a
permanent crispness obtained with chemicals (Heberlein process). Calendering is
a finishing process used on cloth where fabric is folded in half and passed
under rollers at high temperatures and pressures. This polishes the surface and
makes the fabric smoother and more lustrous. Fabrics that go through the
Calendering process feel thin, glossy and papery. The Calendering finish is
easily destroyed, and does not last well. Washing in water destroys it, as does
wear with time.

Organdy wrinkles badly unless given a wrinkle-free finish
bellmanizing which is a starching process. It may be bleached, dyed, printed,
frosted, flocked, embroidered, or plisse,(a textile finish of permanently puckered designs formed by treating
with a sodium hydroxide solution).

Monday, July 16, 2012

When a woman dressed to go out in the 1950's she wore gloves, a hat, jewelry, a purse and shoes that matched, and carried a handkerchief.

Gloves were worn everywhere in the 1950s and completed a
woman's grooming. Without gloves
she was not properly dressed. Clean gloves were also the hallmark of a lady and white or cream were
the most favored gloves.

Gloves worn in so many colors were usually made of cotton
as this was more affordable than leather gloves or the newer nylon and they
could be washed very easily. Even so many women owned a special pair of leather gloves.

The formality of wearing gloves even continued into the
sixties with interesting cut out peephole variations in the popular stretch
nylon and designed almost like a golfing glove. By the 1970s gloves were more used functionally for keeping
the hands warm than for any other reason.

The child’s shoes date to the turn of the century. They have
been worn and have white glass buttons that probably needed a buttonhook.

After researching the lace up shoes they could be from the 1920’s
to the 1940’s. This seemed to be a style that was an old stand-by and made over
and over so they fit into several decades. They have never been worn and the
laces weren’t laced and tied up to the top like you find shoes in a shoe store
that have never been tried on. I remember my grandmother wearing shoes like
this.

I found this man’s dress shirt in a box in an Antique shop.
It did not have buttons, cuff links, or a bow tie so I had to find these to
complete the shirt. The label on the shirt said Arrow Shirt Company. There was
no date on the box but the style and graphics looked like around 1950. It is
difficult to find men’s vintage clothing articles. There seems to be more
available for women.

I have included a short conversation told to Bob Phibb, The
Retail Doctor, www.retaildoc.com/blog,
by Roger Leithead, the former CEO of Arrow shirts.

Arrow Shirts, a history.

The Arrow shirt concept came about in the 1800’s because men
only wore white dress shirts and they all went to work in a suit. Even the
blacksmith would work in that white shirt. Well this one guy was a singer and
his wife didn’t like him coming home and changing into a clean shirt just to go
out – especially since they only bathed on Saturday nights. The idea of a detachable collar and
cuffs made it easy to look presentable without all that washing.

This is the way Arrow built an empire of over 450 warehouses
across the US filled with detachable collars and cuffs. It was a recipe for
success: find out what the customer wanted and then give it to them.

A competitor, the Manhattan shirt company, had a shirt you
could buy with an attached collar and cuffs but it was built like a tent with
yards of fabric to tuck in. Also, the sleeve length was a 37. That’s why guys wore armbands, so their
sleeves wouldn’t reach over their fingers – like you see in barbershop
quartets. At the time that was based on need, not looks.

Sales were dropping off and the Arrow CEO saw the trend was
changing to a complete shirt. He
announced to his board of directors in 1930, “We will never get there doing
what we’re doing now.”
That’s when something truly remarkable happened.

He went downstairs and gave instructions to open the doors
of their main warehouse on River Street in Troy, New York, which bordered on
the Hudson River. “Clear out the warehouse.” Using pitchforks, the warehouse
men threw all of the existing collars and cuffs into the river.

Forget the environmental consequences of such an act of over
1 million dozen collars and cuffs floating down the Hudson. He threw out their
entire inventory in order to make the changes needed.

They came up with 64 combinations of neck and sleeve lengths
so that Arrow shirt fit you properly, not like a sack. They changed from
natural ocean pearl buttons that broke easily, to plastic and invented
Sanfordizing, which meant a shirt wouldn’t shrink. They again became the leader
in men’s shirts because of the CEO realizing they had to change or die.

You think it’s tough to compete now? Imagine going into a
retailer in the Depression telling them they needed all this inventory to serve
their customers; where three models could capture the market, now they needed
64.

The CEO then had marketing come up with the “Arrow Shirt
Man.” Splashy ads in the best
magazines touted how well an Arrow shirt fit. It created a need for the women who purchased their
husbands’ shirts to go into retailers and ask for that “Arrow Shirt.” Retailers had no choice but to carry
them and the rest is history.

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

La Fem Sophistique is a dress shop in Sacramento CA that only sells vintage designer clothing. They loaned this dress to me so I could make a graphite drawing of it. When it was finished, I sent the dress back along with the drawing and it now hangs in their shop.

She died Sept. 27 at her home in Pacific Palisades. The cause was
brain cancer, her sister Andrea Casadei Best said.

One of the first Los Angeles designers of her generation to gain a
national reputation for something other than swimwear, Casadei claimed Old
Hollywood glamour as her inspiration and fantasy dresses at affordable prices
as her niche.

She introduced her TD4 (To Die For) line in the late 1970s for
customers ages 14 and up. Before long their mothers were wearing the clothes
and she launched a second collection, Casadei, for them. By the early 1980s, a
boom time for flaunt-it fashion, Casadei was in her stride.

"Padded shoulders, draping, appliques, sequins, Eletra's evening
dresses were over the top and a lot of fun," Pam Roberts, the designer's
former publicist, told The Times.

Throughout the 1980s, Casadei's collections were carried in some 7,000
boutiques and department stores, most of them in the U.S. Prices ranged from
about $100 to about $400.

A former fashion model, she wore her own designs and added a few
accents, such as plum color streaks in her hair and iridescent fuchsia nail
polish.

Dresses from her collections turned up on sitcoms and soaps as diverse
as "Golden Girls," about four older women rooming together, and
"Dynasty," about Denver socialites with glitzy tastes.

Casadei's best advertisements were the two fashion-music videos she
created in the mid-1980s, modeled after the music videos that aired on MTV.
Instead of costumes, she used dresses from her latest collection.

"Eletra pioneered fashion-music videos," Janet Orsi, another
former publicist, said this week. "The idea was to capitalize on the music
video phenomenon and marry it to fashion. Designers got to show their clothes
in a new genre. It was a change from the typical fashion show."

Casadei's videos played in stores and wholesale showrooms as well as
on MTV. She played the lead in "Adventures of the Countess," a
mystery made in the style of a silent movie with scary mood music.

Her other video, "Prom Night," with a soundtrack of Steve
Winwood music, shows girls at a dance that gets a lot more exciting when guys
in black leather show up.

Casadei was born July 5, 1953, in the east San Francisco Bay community
of Hayward, where she won the title "Maid of Hayward" as a teenager.
She graduated from Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, majoring in
business administration. Her first job, as a store buyer, was frustrating.
"She was always wishing she could change the way the clothes were
designed," Casadei's sister said.

She taught herself the skills of fashion design and opened a business
office in downtown L.A.

Casadei scaled back her operation in the '90s but became known for her
remakes of the most popular celebrity dresses at the Academy Award shows. Her
version of the vintage Valentino gown that actress Julia Roberts wore in 2001
sold for $169.

Most recently she designed under the Casadei by Eletra Casadei label
and owned a boutique in Pacific Palisades where she sold her ready-to-wear
styles and made custom-order clothes. She continued working until a few weeks
ago.

Casadei's only marriage ended in divorce. In addition to her sister,
she is survived by her son, Nico Casadei Roe; her mother, Verna Casadei; and
another sister, Janelle Brunelli.

The center of interest in the oil painting is the
Advance-sewing pattern. Advance was the pattern company for J.C. Penney’s,
1930-1965. On the envelope, below
the words “Advance Pattern” are the words “Tailored Dress”. This, along with
the number 2530, dates the pattern to the 1930’s. During this time almost all
suits and dresses were belted and the sleeves were wide or full. The shirtwaist
dress was introduced in 1932.

I placed the fabric on a cutting board and used a measuring
tape for design and color. I cut out and pinned two pattern pieces on the
fabric to make it look like a woman was going to cut this pattern out and make
this dress.

This dress belonged to my husband’s mother, Eva. It is of a
sheer material and from the 1920’s - 1930’s. It has a long flared skirt with a
ruffle at the hem, short sleeves, a sheer gathered trim around the collar and a
loose empire waist.

I don’t know how she got the dress or where she wore it so I
created a story that maybe she ordered it through a mail order catalog. I
wrapped it up in brown paper, added a mailing label, and tied it with a string.
Then I unwrapped it and added a coat hanger like she was ready to put it in the
closet after she tried it on. Then maybe something interrupted her and she lay
the dress down on the paper and tossed the string over the paper and dress and
went to take care of what distracted her from hanging the dress up.

At the time there would have been no need to take a photo of
this ordinary scene much less paint a picture of it but now I find every reason
to paint and document a garment that is 80+ years old that belonged to my
mother-in-law.

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Sugar Cookies

This painting has been accepted into the 101st Exhibitionof the Connecticut Academy of Fine Arts

May 25 - July 14, 2012

Mystic Arts Center

9 Water Street

Mystic, CT 06355

860-536-7601

The sugar cookies are drowning in granulated sugar and sugar
cubes. The belly of the sugar jar reflects the sugar in the foreground and the
lid has turned into a sugar cookie with a cube for a handle. It is soft,
beautiful and dangerous where there are no limits to the landscape and our need
for sugar.

In this painting on Processed Foods I ask several questions.
Is the soft, lovely, swirling forms of white sugar meant to describe the nature
of the sweet substance or is it a dangerous rising level trying to drown out
the box and the packet of Kool Aide? How much sugar is too much and do we
consume more than we should?

I am starting a new series about Processed Foods. This
painting is about the sugar we consume. The glass full of Cherry Kool Aide is
sitting in a sugar jar where there isn’t any room for the lid and sugar spoon.
The environment consists of mounds and hill of sugar. The color appeals to kids,
as does the twisting neon green straw, making it fun to drink.

Thursday, February 9, 2012

Fruit Loops

I am starting a new series investigating processed foods.
The ingredients may start out as whole foods but then they are altered,
subtracted from, added to, preserved, and colored, no longer being the
wholesome foods they started out to be. The finished product is beautiful and
the packaging draws you in and begs to be bought.

In this series I am not going to use the conventional
tabletop, shelf or wall to paint my still life subjects. This painting takes
place in a child’s lunchbox where a lot of processed food ends up. The Fruit
Loops were beautiful and fun to paint. Do they bring back memories and feeling
of nostalgia and childhood or do they make you want to read the label first?

This painting is on an 8” X 8” X 1.5” deep cradleboard. The
edges are beveled and painted. I cut out the Swiss cheese and cracker shapes
using gesso board and then painted the objects to look realistic. I made the
cheese semi transparent by showing the faint design from the background and
then glazing the yellow color over so the design can barely be seen. Then I
glued the cheese on top of the background and the cracker on top of the cheese
or a 3-D look.